SpiegelMom Scraps March Blog Hop

You just came from Sara’s blog, isn’t her posts so beautiful and creative.

This month the SpiegelMom Scraps Design Team and the Creative Embellishments Team is doing a product swap. Today we are sharing what we made with the products we swapped!! I hope you are super excited, because I am soon excited to share the layout I made we the products I got from Creative Embellishments!!

I am so super excited to share this layout with you today. This might just be one of my favorite layouts I have made this year, but even collectively.

This summer in the process of our move from Hawaii to Washington State our family did some fun outings to pass the time and have some time together. Being in a hotel for a little over a month we needed to get out and do something fun.

One of the things we decided to do was visit one of the local towns and train museums. We were able to actually ride a railroad train to the buildings where the lumbar and train workers lived and worked few weeks and months at a time.

I love history so for me I was in heaven, seeing all the replicated housing and the train building where they fixed and worked on the train parts to keep the train working to transport the lumber to the coast where it would connect to other parts of the railroad at the time.

My kids were in heaven because they LOVE trains!! They were in awe to be able to ride in one, to climb up the steps of the train. They loved looking at the window and watching the world pass by as the steam train blew it’s whistle.

The only thing that was a bit sad was that because of all the clouds in the distance the view of Mt. Rainer (which is only about 10 or so miles away from us) wasn’t clear. You really could only see glimpses of the grandeur mountain and volcano. I actually hope this coming summer we can go back out there to see Mt. Rainer up close and take this train ride out again, just was the views along the way.

All this spurred this layout, which ended up having a mind of it’s own. I was only planning on doing a 12×12 layout in this sitting. Then maybe do another layout later with some other photos and tell some different stories from this day or of our life with them. I love that when given the chance scrapbooking can become it’s own force. It grows and becomes much more than we could even imagine, and in these moments I find I get lost in the process and grow so much from it. I also tend to love these layouts so much more as well.

I started off with a really big image of the train. I think it was around 8x 10 in size. I also used this time to print off many smaller 2×3 size images from this day. My thought was to use 5 of these smaller photos at the bottom of the big photo.

This is when it become apparent that I was’t going to have much room for journaling of any embellishments to tell this story. I didn’t really want to cover up much of the images. I wanted to have enough space so you could actual take in what was in these photos. Many of them are some of my favorite images I have taken with my DSLR.

In came in the second side of this layout. I added a few more images I had printed off and put off to the side thinking I wasn’t going to use on this layout. I guess they were calling out to me to be used!!

One other thing I knew I wanted to try was to make some shakers. One of the things I received from Creative Embellishments was a pack of different size circles cut in chipboard. They reminded me of the wheels of the train on the railroad track. I thought these would be a fun place to contain sequin shakers. What isn’t more fun than a train wheel filled with sequins?! I used some old acetate cut a parts from my stash as the cover of the shakers. I filled the circles with some new March Release sequins, Pandora’s Ombre and Green Acres. I knew these colors would really compliment the colors throughout this layout. Because these pictures were taken in June everything out here was so green and full of life and color.

Making these shakers were definitely a labor of love. Figuring out the best glue because of the clear acetate was really difficult. These shakers took over a day to get right. They are so worth it though. I absolutely love how they turned out. I was surprised that you can barely see the glue I used last. I ended up using the red line AC double sided tape. I cut it in half and used lots of small pieces to have a really good seal all the way around the shakers. I know if I had used vellum or a glassine bag I might have not had a hard time with the glue and fit, but I am so glad I used the manly clear acetate. You really can see the colors on these sequins in the circles. They really add to the layout and provide a fun embellishment without having a lot of pieces .

Of course I added more layers of embellishments throughout the layout. I used the SpiegelMom Scraps Cork Stars throughout the layout as well. I really enjoy these stars. I love the texture they add, and really brings a bit of nature into the layout. Adhering them with staples brings in the metal that I think of with the Railroad train and tracks.

As well as using the Creative Embellishments Circles with sequins, I also added a few around the layout bare. I found that the wooden buttons fit in them nicely and looked playful.

I used lots of tickets throughout my layout as embellishments since we needed a ticket to get on the train. I really tried to think of these types of aspects when putting together my layout. I think it helps tie that layout together better and more cohesive which is really important when you are doing a double page spread.

I hope this layout has inspired to think outside the box and try to let the layout tell you where it’s going while making it. Also to not be afraid because it is going in a direction that you didn’t expect!!

I also have a process video for this layout, Which you can check out down below!

Now don’t forget to check out Heather’s blog. I can’t wait to see what see has made for this product swap! I am sure it will be stunning!!

This layout if fantabulous. Wow! Wow! I really like it. You really thought outside the box train (pun intended), sorry could not help myself. I love how you designed around the big picture (not a methaphor, for real). I am mad about the sequins in the circle chipboards.